Not far from the Strip, the door of a metal building. cover story. the sunday april 24-April 30. We want to hear from you

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2 12 the sunday april 24-April 30 cover story We want to hear from you Send your news information to By chris kudialis STAFF WRITER Not far from the Strip, the door of a metal building opens to a dark hallway and moist curtains. The temperature drops from 75 degrees to just under 35, and more than 50 tons of fish from around the world sit covered in thick ice shavings, waiting to be delivered to restaurants throughout the Las Vegas Valley. Chef Rick Moonen, the founder and owner of RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay, browses the inventory at the Supreme Lobster and Seafood Co. warehouse with longtime friend Larry Manheim, a former chef now working as a salesman at the plant. Unlike some years ago, when most of Supreme Lobster s inventory was wild-caught, the warehouse markets 60 percent of its seafood as farmed-raised, because chefs like Moonen are demanding it. Moonen, 60, is recognized by chefs and scholars as a leader in aquaculture fish farming, a growing practice in which fish are raised in controlled environments and harvested for human consumption. Commonly farmed fish include salmon, tilapia, catfish, carp, trout, bream and sea bass. While most chefs on the Las Vegas Strip use less than 20 percent, if any, aquaculture sea animals on their menu, more than half of Moonen s 30 seafood appetizers and entrees feature farm-raised fish and crustaceans. Despite worldwide increases in commercial aquaculture fish farming, Moonen said most U.S. restaurants have yet to follow the trend because chefs are reluctant to serve food they don t see as natural. If you re a real chef, you have this belief system that real food comes from nature, and there s a connectedness with all of that, Moonen explained. But at some point, being connected with nature also means working to preserve it. Over 48 percent of the world s seafood is farm-raised, according to a 2013 study from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, up from 4 percent in A separate 2013 study from the World Bank s Agricultural and Environmental Services estimates aquaculture will account for over 60 percent of the world s seafood by You sit down and think, 7 billion now, 10 billion by 2060, Moonen said, referring to the world s human population. It s not rocket science that we re going to have some serious issues with food security if we don t do something. That something, Moonen and others believe, is the ongoing development of aquaculture farming, which can be as simple as a family raising catfish in a homemade pond filled with well water or as complex as an international corporation maintaining multiple species in netted-off areas of oceans around the world. ocean, Continued on page 16

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4 16 the sunday april 24-April 30 cover story We want to hear from you Send your news information to Is modifying the gene pool a solution? While genetically modified plants, like soy and corn, are abundant in Americans diets, November s approval of the AquAdvantage salmon was the first time in U.S. history that a genetically engineered animal was approved for human consumption. The move has been highly controversial. To make the supersized salmon, known colloquially in the aquaculture community as Frankenfish, a growth hormone gene from a Pacific Chinook King salmon and a promoter from an ocean pout were added to an Atlantic Salmon s 40,000 genes, allowing the fish to grow yearround instead of only during spring and summer months. The added genes make the AquAdvantage salmon grow up to three times the size of a regular Atlantic Salmon, in almost half the time (18 months as opposed to three years), according to spokesman Dave Conley for AquaBounty Technologies, which produces the fish. AquAdvantage salmon grow at an especially fast rate and also are able to reproduce by just two years of age, while regular salmon normally reproduce between ages three and six years. But because of their size, the genetically modified fish are slow swimmers, and require three pounds of wild feed per pound of their own growth. And while Aqua Bounty Technologies claims there are no nutritional deficiencies in their salmon, Chef Rick Moonen was adamant such a fish couldn t have the same nutritional value as wild caught or unmodified farm-raised fish. Something like that isn t natural, it s just scary Moonen said. Its growth and development is stressed, and the meat won t be as nutritious. Ocean, from page 12 True North, a New Brunswick-based Atlantic salmon farm with over 85 functioning sites across the eastern United States and Canada, is closer to the latter. With over 10 million fish spread across nearly 1,200 netted pens in the Atlantic Ocean, the company s 2,800 employees spawn broodstock fish in indoor freshwater tanks, replicating the climate of wild salmon, which also spawn in freshwater. When the eggs hatch, the young salmon spend their first year of life in indoor tanks, where they re fed through a timed feeder before being moved to netted pens in the Atlantic Ocean. The pens are refilled, and the year-round cycle of life goes on inside of them. Meanwhile, outside of the nets, wild salmon are less abundant than ever. The United States is the world leader in sustainable fish management, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Near extinction If there s one fish that embodies the need for continued aquaculture growth, it s salmon. Once among the most plentiful fish in the sea, wild species of Pacific and Atlantic salmon are now on the verge of going extinct, according to U.S. government sources, thanks to overfishing. Overfishing, the human-involved process of catching wild fish populations faster than they can reproduce, has left 90 percent of the world s fisheries nearly desolate, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium s Seafood Watch. The California-based acquarium s internationally regarded seafood watch list places most of the world s known fisheries among three categories: n Fully exploited: Fished beyond near-term recovery n Overexploited: Overfished but able to recover n Collapsed: Permanently damaged. Moonen explained that while fish remain in fisheries that fall under all three categories, collapsed fisheries are so desolate that dropping a net in those areas is a waste of time and money. There s not enough fish in the ocean to put gas in your boat and make it worth going out there, he explained. Eighteen species of Pacific salmon were listed in a 2009 report from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office as either threatened or endangered, a figure that remained into 2016, a department spokesman said. In September 2015, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study determined that four additional Pacific salmon stocks were also subject to overfishing, meaning the rate of harvest may need to be reduced. In the Gulf of Maine, the local population of Atlantic salmon also is endangered, according to a 2016 NOAA report. If this iconic species goes extinct, the extensive (food) services it once provided to the American people will be lost forever, the report said of the Gulf of Maine s salmon. At least 425 billion pounds of wild salmon were caught in 2011, according to a 2014 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, contributing to more than 5 percent of the world trade market for seafood that year. Greg Lutz, a professor at Louisiana State University and aquaculture scholar, estimates that the recent extinction scares are the beginning of a worldwide fish shortage. Though NOAA reports show aquaculture is growing annually by over 3 percent worldwide, Lutz said even fish farming as it s currently being practiced has a harsh effect on the oceans. Farmed salmon, for instance, consume one to four pounds of ground anchovies or sardines in pellets per pound of their own mass. Lutz said that s better than feeding the fish their natural foods endangered krill and shrimp, which wild salmon eat five pounds of per pound of their own mass. But the current aquaculture model still pulls far too much nutrition from the sea, Lutz said. To be fully sustainable, salmon must be adapted to plant and vegetable-based diets, like soy and corn, Lutz said. Another more controversial option to wild catching, genetically modified salmon, soon will be on Americans tables. In November, the AquAdvantage salmon became the first genetically modified animal to receive FDA approval for commercial production and sale. The fish is an Atlantic salmon with genetic enhancements from the Pacific Chinook King salmon and a bottomdwelling fish called an ocean pout. The AquAdvantage salmon s engineered DNA allows it to grow year-round instead of only during spring and summer months, when most salmon go through growth. Known colloquially as Frankenfish, the AquAdvantage salmon grows up to three times the size of a regular Atlantic salmon, in almost half the time (18 months as opposed to three years), according to spokesman Dave Conley for Aqua Bounty Technologies, which produces the fish. The genetically modified fish, first developed in 1993, took over 20 years to gain FDA approval. Although the FDA claimed the fish was as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon, in 2010, five years passed before the agency s official blessing was given. Amid fears that the fish could escape containment and reproduce with wild populations, and because of consumer concerns over genetically modified animals, the FDA continually delayed the approval process, Conley said, leaving the company nearly bankrupt. For that reason, AquAdvantage salmon appears to be the only genetically modified fish, for now, in the works. As part of the landmark approval, Frankenfish are only allowed to grow in indoor, freshwater tanks, away from the wild. Cash-strapped and barely surviving at the longawaited time of the FDA approval, Aqua Bounty hopes to begin selling its product in U.S. grocery stores by 2017, Conley said. Lutz believes fish like the AquAdvantage salmon are the future. In the next 30 to 40 years, he said, most if not all seafood would be farmed, genetically modified fish. ocean, Continued on page 18 Photo by Jon Estrada/staff

5 If you re a real chef, you have this belief system that real food comes from nature, and there s a connectedness with all of that. But at some point, being connected with nature also means working to preserve it. You sit down and think, 7 billion now, 10 billion by 2060 (referring to the human population). It s not rocket science that we re going to have some serious issues with food security if we don t do something. Rick Moonen 17 THE SUNDAY COVER STORY APRIL 24-APRIL 30

6 18 the sunday april 24-April 30 cover story ocean, from page 16 Sooner or later we still come back to this issue: How are we going to make more food with limited resources on the planet? Lutz said. Paul Anderson, director of the Sea Grant and Aquaculture Research Institute at the University of Maine, agrees. With no guarantee that endangered salmon and other fish will be replenished anytime soon, Anderson said further advancements in science and aquacultural farming would be needed to help figure everything out. A narrow scope Besides salmon, RM Seafood s Moonen orders farm-raised oysters, barramundi and sturgeon among other sea animals from as many as 30 different sources, including Supreme Lobster, filling about 15 of 30 farm-raised seafood appetizers and entrees on his menu. Without aquaculture, the wild world cannot satisfy the amount of salmon and other sea animals that the rest of the world wants, he said. We have a very narrow scope of what the ocean has to offer as an acceptable dinner product. Matt Accarrino, of San Francisco-based SPQR, is another chef working to include sustainable aquaculture items on his menu. Accarrino, whose restaurant features farmed caviar, abalone, red trout and sturgeon, says he promotes sustainability by ordering from local, responsible farmers. His main supplier, Sacramento-based Passmore Ranch, drives anywhere from 50 to 75 pounds of farmed sturgeon 110 miles to SPQR s front door, twice each week. It s the closest sturgeon farm to the San Francisco Bay area, he said. It s super important that you know your product and know your farmers, Accarrino said. Sustainability is a version of consistency, a well-run operation that provides high-quality products. Still, for other chefs, like Portland, Maine-based Matt Ginn, 30, of Evo Kitchen + Bar, sustainability can be found not through farmed fish, but by choosing wild species that are both local and sustainable. With local Gulf of Maine salmon listed as endangered, and others, like cod and haddock, considered overfished, Ginn s menu instead features more common sea animals, like hake, mackerel and Acadian redfish. These fish are equally as good, and for different plates, even better at times, Ginn said. I don t know why some people have this negative stigma, but the fish taste good and they re healthy. While Moonen and four other aquaculture chefs interviewed by The Sunday acknowledged that not all of the seafood on their menus was environmentally sustainable, they all said they hoped their ongoing efforts would result in the preservation of sea animals, and a healthier planet. But for now, most chefs still use a majority of wildcaught fish on their menus, Moonen said. And as long as chefs can cook wild fish and consumers can eat it without any visible consequences, that trend will be hard to buck, he said. It s not something that will happen overnight, Moonen said. That s for sure pounds The average amount of fish and shellfish consumed in the U.S. per person in That s 4.5 ounces of seafood per week, less than half of what the USDA recommends. most consumed SEAFOOD IN the united states in Shrimp 5. Alaska Pollock 2. Salmon 6. Pangasius WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? EAT responsibly The Monterey Bay Aquarium s Seafood Watch says promoting sustainable seafood is as easy as asking questions. The watch recommends asking the simple question Do you serve sustainable seafood? when shopping or eating at restaurants, to promote sustainable seafood practices. 1 2 Some grocery stores, like Whole Foods, list a fish s origin, whether it was farmed or wild-caught, and signify how sustainable the fish is using red, yellow and green stickers. 9. Crab 10. Clams Our seafood comes from other countries In 2015, over 90 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. was imported, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The leading foreign suppliers of seafood products to the U.S. in 2014 were China, Canada, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Chile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. 7. Cod 3. Tuna 4. Tilapia consume responsibly Fossil fuels are a major contributor to ocean acidification, but finding small ways to reduce your personal consumption can make a big difference. Carpooling, driving fuel-efficient vehicles and using public transportation are all great examples, as is investing in alternative energy like solar power. 8. Catfish educate yourself 3 Read, research and explore resources like Monterey Bay Aquarium s Seafood Watch app, which provides free, up-to-date information on seafood recommendations. The app uses a color-coded method and searches for local restaurants that serve ocean-friendly seafood. Consumers can also find the information online, at